Shaping Silhouette
by Zelha
Summary: Shameless AU! A man needs to have his priorities in life and, to Deidara, art comes in second. DeiSaku.


**Disclaimer:** Naw, I don't own Naruto, but Celtic Oak owns a Deidei plushie and I own a pair of Gaara's slippers. Heh.  
**Warning:** Mature content ahead, so don't complain if I give you some mental scars.  
**Notes:** I blame Cynchick and her preview of Vertigo! This is for you, honey! And also for Sometime.Usagi in thanks for putting up with my fangirling. And I want to thanks from the deep bottom of my heart (yes, I have one! One, not four!) to Celtic Oak for her awesome and incredible betaing work!

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**Shaping Silhouette**

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A soft sigh signaled her arrival at the building.

She was beyond tired; a week of nothing but frantic shifts, emergency procedures and difficult surgeries was finally taking a toll on her. Feet dragged towards the elevator as she passed by the row of mailboxes, barely glancing at the one that was assigned to her by habit more than anything else. Nothing was inside, it seemed.

Sakura stopped in her tracks for a moment, recalling the date. The electricity bill was due to arrive anytime that week, so the absence of letters, spam propaganda and bills after her week-long confinement in the hospital could only mean one thing.

That her significant other had finally returned from his tour.

Sakura shook her head, chastising herself. He wasn't back, how could he back after just a month? His line of work was so different from hers that it would be a miracle for him to come back before the end of the year.

In fact, it would be surprising if he ever came back at all.

They'd had a really explosive spat: her penchant to leave the flat they shared when he was in one of his brooding moods had irked him for so long that the sole view of her hospital rucksack was enough for him to start arguing with his pink-haired lover.

Of course, she had countered readily, throwing in his face all those days in which she had been ignored by his stress and weird quirks when he locked himself up in his study, 'looking for inspiration', as he called his brooding periods.

He had all but shouted angrily that he had a deadline to meet and he could die if he failed to do so. She had yelled back ruthlessly that her deadlines _really meant death_ for others, and if he didn't understand that, maybe it was time for them to take separate ways.

True, she had been hurt by his selfishness; but he chose to bypass her frustrated face, storming back to his study. But when he came back out ten minutes later...

She was nowhere to be found.

Well, she could easily be located at the hospital, but he tended not to enter that place because he had had a few unpleasant encounters with representatives of her profession, but the note she had found at the reception desk was clear and short.

"Tch," she let out in annoyance. He wasn't a man of words, certainly. The note only said that he was leaving on the promotional tour. He didn't even leave her an estimated time of return, so...

It took a call to her superior and a favor from one of her colleagues to collect several cloth changes and seclude herself in the hospital, nesting her own office in order to live there until her heart stopped hurting. She just couldn't bring herself to look for another place; she loved that apartment too much.

Therefore, he was the one that needed to leave. However, she didn't have the heart to pack up his belongings and evict him in his absence.

Sakura let out another sigh. At that very moment, she didn't care if he was really back, she just needed to sleep for at least twenty-four hours and recharge her depleted energy. Until then, and only then, she coulddeal with his hot-headed bitching.

The elevator opened its doors, welcoming her with a soft ding. There had been a time when her lover had amused her greatly by imitating that chime with a mocking smirk, stealing a good deal of kisses from her in the period that ittook the elevator to rise until their selected floor. Those kisses invariably led to a frenzied urge, a few broken keys and a lot of laughs from both of them as they tried to open their flat door while they pulled their clothes off each other.

Sakura smiled wistfully at the memories. Those encounters had been so full of passion that they hadn't cared that the wooden parquet floor of the large living room was acting as their chosen location for their intercourses. Picking the correct key, she swung open the door, finally entering her not so humble abode.

Her eyes were drooping from general exhaustion and lack of slumber. Tossing the keys onto the kitchen counter and the rucksack on the sofa, Sakura made her way towards the bedroom, intent on collapsing on the bed and proceed to fall asleep readily. She failed to notice the suitcase next to the sofa and the long, black coat that was carelessly draped over one of the counter chairs. She missed the set of keys that clinked when hers fell over it.

Also, she failed to see the figure that turned eagerly to greet her but stayed silent with it took in how tired she looked. She missed the eyes that followed her longingly to the bed, detailing how she pulled her coat and her scrubs out as she lowered her exhausted form into the warm embrace of the bed that a body had just left a minute ago.

Sakura missed the tall, lean man that crouched next to her almost unconscious form as she slipped into deep slumber.

"Damn it, yeah."

She alsomissed the low curse that was charged with frustration, worry and sadness.

-------

But Sakura certainly did miss the arm that wasn't wrapped snugly around her waist when she woke up and the warm body attached to it. She yawned and sighed again.

She was a fool for thinking he had returned to her.

That was why she had been lodging in the hospital in the first place; the flat was too big for her and all the memories that were held within its walls were too painful to remember when he wasn't there, mainly because of the current situation. She had admitted to her mentor that living with a hot-tempered artist was anything but easy, especially when he pitched those frustrated fits when his creations weren't going the way he wanted.

Clad in only her underwear, she padded to the bathroom as she stretched, hearing and feeling her spinal cord cracking with the pressure. Satisfied, she entered the bathroom, glad that she could take a bath in the large tub, relaxing and pampering her body after a week full of stress and barely thorough showers taken at the medic's quarters.

Filling the tub with hot water, she discarded her clothing and sank in the water, moaning in bliss at the sensation of soaking warmth engulfing her body.

So distracted she was with herself that she missed the smirk and clear blue eyes that observed every detail as she leaned back against the tub, her eyes closed in pleasure, finally relaxed and off-guard.

Truth be told, he didn't want to leave before working out the disgruntlement that had transpired between the two of them, but his master and manager had been adamant. His presence was required in the artistic tour in order for it to succeed. That original gig had ensured an alternative advertising of his creations, goading the media to his talent and finally making the critics acknowledge him.

He had no choice but to follow his master's grumpy instructions, but he managed to go to the hospital before going to the airport in order to see his pink-haired surgeon for a minute, apologize for his stupidity and steal a deep kiss from her.

His plans were trampled, though, when he walked into the Emergency Section and encounter quite an astonishing sight: Sakura with her white coat splattered with crimson blood, her hands working frantically on a little girl's body while she shouted firm commands to her colleagues.

He could onlywatch her in her element as she tended to that victim of a car crash: her little but sure hands, handling the needle and the scalpel with such mastery that his eyes followed in blatant awe. Her hair was pulled back into a long ponytail, pretty much like his own, while her eyes only showed concentration and dedication. He saw passion, a very different passion than the one she showed him when they made love, but passion nonetheless.

He had been entranced with her performance, watching her grasp the pallets with such certainty as she yelled the order for her team to back away while she dealt the shock that triggered the little girl's heart back into lively motion. A blur of hands prepared the girl while her assistants whooped her welcome back to clinical life, as his lover gathered the necessary tools to secure her patient's stay in this world.

Only when she saw the gurney wheeling down towards the Surgery Rooms did she allow herself a smile, before snapping her plastic gloves out of her hands, grabbing another set of scrubs and trudging down the hall with one of her colleagues while she joked briefly about little bangs that were miracles in their field.

His back leaned against the wall as she walked away, unaware of his presence. That smile she offered to her team spoke volumes of her passion. That smile showed gentleness and happiness to the little girl she had just saved, showed that feisty stubbornness that had held his attention since the first time they bumped into each other on the campus, showed her caring side as well as the gruff and proud affection she had towards her team.

It was surprising how much emotions her smile could show, but his eyes were trained to locate and identify all the myriad of sentiments that she could exhibit unintentionally, so in tune he was with her.

After all, that was a trait only couples that had been together for a long time possessed.

He couldn't wait for her to get out of the surgery, so he walked upto the desk and waved to one of her assistants, asking for a piece of paper. His hands had ached to write her a letter explaining his feelings; he had wanted to express all the emotions he could see when she wasn't unaware of others, only focused on what she knew best: saving lives, dealing closely with all death's faces, healing and giving care without asking anything in return.

Instead of pouring his feelings into that post-it that the nurse had given him, he just scrawled where he was going to be for the next two months... deeply regretting the curtness that seemed to radiate from the note when he re-read it, but his time was short and his master's angry screaming on the cellphone left him with little choice.

His head had banged against the desk in the hotel room in utter frustration when he finally linked her nature to all the behaviors she adopted when dealing with him. She had been nothing but patient with his angry outbursts since the very beginning of their relationship, working his frustrations with a sweet, gentle voice as he vented his ire at the professors and the critics of his works but also shouting at him when his rants were beyond reason. Thanks to her unorthodox therapy, he managed to cool down his temper enough to present his final piece in the Art Academy without a hitch, eliciting whispers of admiration from the jury and ensuring him the ambitioned first place on the contest that narrowed his path to success in the artistic field.

Her own graduation had been a complete accomplishment as well, but he only had had eyes for the pink-haired Class President that pronounced a speech that left him breathless. She was such a sweet, caring person who held a side of inner power and determination, declaring a war against pain and decease and taking the Hippocratic Oath on her Class' behalf under the waves of enthusiastic applauses from family and friends.

She had been magnificent, and he was nothing but eager to enjoy her giddiness and happiness, observing all the changes in her expressive face while she laughed, pouted or talked animatedly to her friends and parents.

It didn't take long for them to move in together, both professionals and successful in their own fields. He opened a gallery and she joined the ranks of her mentor's hospital.

But routine had taken possession of her life and his lack of recognition from the personalities in his circle while she was acknowledged as a medical prodigy by her colleagues had thrown them into a downward spiral that hadexploded with that awful argument, both ending up hurt and sad for all the words said without thinking.

As he mused all this, his hands went about preparing breakfast for the medic in the bathtub, who had been seemingly napping by the time he finished gathering the toasts, the scrambled eggs and started to prepare the black substance that both of them loved dearly.

-------

A pleasant aroma filled her numbed senses, awakening herfrom her leisurely nap. Raising her hand to her face, she noted with a grimace that her fingertips had wrinkled because of her submersion in the tub water.

She just didn't want to get out of the tub, but that subtle aroma had picked her curiosity... and the water had gotten cold.

Finally she rose and dried her body and hair thoroughly, wrapping a towel around her well-shaped form before sauntering out of the bathroom...

...and promptly freezing at the sight that greeted her.

_There he was_, pouring two cups of beloved and praised black coffee without spilling a single drop on the counter.

Sakura blinked. Of course, this could only be a hallucination, she told herself shaking her head. She had to be dreaming still; she had to be still submerged in the tub... or the bunk she had in her office. Now she would wake up and find herself shaken by a nurse because another emergency had hit the room and they needed her presence as soon as possible!

"Good morning, yeah," he spoke, startling her and shattering all her pretenses of it all being just a dream with his _real_ existence in her vicinity.

"Dei... Deidara?" she whispered, eyes wide with surprise.

"Yo," he answered with that infuriating but sexy smirk of his. "I'm glad you remember me, yeah."

Finally setting the cups on their respective places in their dining counter, he looked up and stared back at her. She was only clad with that little white towel, showcasing that lithe and soft body that he was obsessed with claiming since he left. Her emerald-colored orbs were large with her surprise, as he had envisioned they would be when she finally noticed his presence within the spacious and luminous flat.

"...What are you doing?" she blurted out, making obvious to him how off-guard he had caught her.

"Breakfast," he replied, rounding the counter and allowing her to see his apparel: his favorite black and red drawstring pants and no shirt on. "Hungry?"

She was shocked into silence, but her brilliant mind started to kick back into gear quickly.

"No," she said, still blinking but regaining focus fast enough.

But once again he beat her to the punch. "So you're not hungry, hmm?"

She drew a deep breath, now completely awake. "Yes, but that was not what I meant. What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Well, I live here, for starters, yeah," he drawled with an amused smirk. For the life of him he just couldn't picture how she could take over an emergency while she looked so oddly off and incredibly cute in that moment if he hadn't seen it with his very own eyes. "My flight was canceled due to bad weather, so I had to wait until they opened the airport again, yeah."

"Deidara," she breathed, evidencing that she was back on her mental track. "What are you doing _here_? I thought you weren't coming back."

"Why wouldn't I?" he shot back, blue eyes widening slightly in surprise. "The tour--"

"Yes, the tour," she cut him off sharply. "You were supposed to travel until New Year's. I thought that Sasori-san had you restrained."

"Figuratively speaking, he had," he grumbled quite audibly. "But I couldn't take it anymore... I had to go back, yeah."

Her bare feet padded softly on the wooden floor, approaching him cautiously and finally responding to the coffee's call.

Climbing awkwardly to the high stool without losing the towel, she promptly gathered her hands on the warm cup as he sat next to her.

"So..." Sakura began, not daring to look at those piercing blue eyes of his. "The tour was canceled?"

The blond man shook his head before swallowing the mouthful he had been chewing. "No, they're presenting in Hokkaido tomorrow."

She looked up, stunned. "Then why are you here? You should be presenting with them."

"I got bored of all the presentations, yeah," he waved his hand dismissively. "Besides, I sold all my pieces already. There wasn't much for me to do there without a sample of my work."

She let out a little, strained smile. "You sold them all? That's great, Deidara... congratulations."

"Thanks," he said with a fond but embarrassed smile of his own. He wasn't oblivious of the tenseness in her posture, the squaring of her shoulders, and the fidgeting of her fingers on the coffee mug. She was still mad at him, whether she acknowledged it or not. "When does your shift start?"

She seemed at loss of words for a moment. "Uh... I have two days off," she murmured, somewhat disgruntled. And he knew why she was.

Deidara had received a phone call from her mentor, Tsunade, telling him in no sugar-coated polite terms that his significant other was camping in her office and refusing to go home and rest properly. This had distressed him because he knew now how Sakura worked; risking everything she had to save her patients, even if it meant driving herself into severe burnout.

Therefore, the blond artist had to gather all his pleading skills –which they were akin to none– to ask Tsunade to order her home, because he was already at the airport but he was stuck because of the snow.

The matron's voice softened when he told her that, proceeding to inform him of her plan to drive her most prized student and medic away from the hospital, while he agreed eagerly, asking for her to send the rest of the plan via mail. He was completely sure he would be the one receiving the envelope, so he boarded the plane mulling the scheme in his head, adding several details of his own.

And one of those details was this breakfast.

Deidara chose not to comment on her growing frustration of being kicked out of her duties by her own boss, preferring to hide his smile behind the cup of coffee and watch her steeling herself for the impending spat.

"Deidara, I think..."

"Aren't you hungry?" he cut her off easily, rising from his stool. "I have something to show you."

The knitting of her roseate eyebrows told him that she was about to snap.

"No," she said pointedly. "We _need_ to talk, Deidara."

He lowered his gaze to hers, taking in the smooth expanse of milky skin that covered her lean limbs. Tsunade was right; she had been missing her meals more often than not.

And the hospital food was anything but nutritious, despite what doctors said.

"Well talk, yeah," he finally conceded with a nod. "But first, let me show you something."

Sakura sighed exasperatedly, standing up from the stool. "Fine."

The sudden coldness in her voice almost made him wince. Walking to the secluded flat area he called his study, he didn't feel her following him. Turning his head, he saw her under the sunlight of the panoramic windows, the white towel barely covering her body while her arms were crossed on her chest.

"I don't have anything to lookat in there," she said tersely. "Deidara, I've been thinking about us, and I think it would be better if--"

In two large strides, he walked up to her and wrapped his arms around her, effectively cutting her off. Staring at her angrily, he merely lowered his head and sealed his lips to hers, shutting her up.

He kissed her hard, pouring all the frustration he felt in his kiss. His tongue engaged hers and challenged her senses in a battle for dominance that usually left her breathless. But now it wasn't exactly working, because all the tension that had transpired between them was rapidly converting into heat and passion.

Sakura moaned into his mouth, disarming her anger and awakening a feverish state she knew very well. Deidara growled in approval, trailing his hands over her towel-covered buttocks as he lifted her up and walked back to his study.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, throwing every single coherent thought out of the window as she let out all her bottled up feelings. She attacked his mouth voraciously, her nails dragging trails on his naked back and her fingers grasping at his long hair in a heated frenzy.

She felt him placing her on a hard, cold surface, before his hands restrained her own while he pulled back. Blinking to clear her haze, she locked her darkened gaze with his.

"I came back to apologize, yeah," he said without preamble. "You were right. I've been childish and selfish, but I didn't know how much I was affecting our relationship with my search for inspiration."

"Dei--_hmph_!"

He dipped his head and kissed her again, harder than before. She responded eagerly, but her attempt was cut short when he pulled back again.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers. "I had been too wrapped up in my own work that I missed your own stress. I'm sorry, Sakura-chan."

Her shoulders drooped a little, showing that she wasn't as mad as before.

"It's fine," she said somewhat dejectedly. "I wasn't exactly open about my stress."

"You should have told me, yeah," he whispered with that deep voice of his, threading his fingers on her long, roseate mane. "We are in this together, remember?"

She felt a chill down her spine, the same chill that was the prelude of all their encounters, but somehow his blue eyes told her that there was more to say, more to express.

"Deidara..." she trailed off, not really knowing what to say. He smiled at his little pink-haired medic slash spitfire as he placed long fingers on her chin, turning her head to the object that was next to her.

As if on cue, the sun lighted inside his study, illuminating the little sculpture. It was a clay figure of herself, dressed in a tunic and holding a caduceus in her hands. The very epitome of her career and her calling, something she never thought he would ever mold.

He always molded birds and other animals, so seeing a sculpture of a human being in his trademark clay style was... surprising, to say the least. Her breath caught up when he reached out and turned the figure to her, showing that besides the caduceus it had wings.

Feathery, incredibly detailed, gorgeous wings.

"I made this when I was away," he murmured next to her ear, proceeding to tell her how he had felt when he witnessed her passion when saving that little girl. A scrap of post-it wasn't enough to tell her how she had looked behind the stress and the blood and the loud noise of the heart monitor. She had been magnificent, a true warrioress, just like she had looked when she had when she pronounced that speech that pulled at his heartstrings. He was such a sucker for the epic.

And now, for the grand finale, soft emerald eyes looked back at him.

"It's gorgeous..." she said, offering him a shy smile. She would never know he had lied, for this piece had been sitting on his study for a long time. The little clay female had been molded after the first night they spent together when they moved into the apartment.

But until now, the piece had been incomplete. The caduceus had been added earlier during the night, while she was asleep.

"It's for you, yeah" he said with that little smirk of his. "Sasori-danna wanted me to sell it, but I wanted to give it to you. After all, it is you."

"Thank you..." she whispered, subdued. "But this doesn't change anything, Deidara... our worlds are too different, we knew this from the beginning."

"I know, yeah, but that doesn't mean we can't create a world of our own," he replied. "Your medical world has a lot of artistic insights, now that I think about it; while my artistic world has certain things that need to be sterilized for sure, yeah."

His long-fingered hands trailed around her waist, while his eyes stared fixedly at hers. "And those two worlds combined make them one world. Our world. I love you, Sakura-chan."

The emotional part of herself melted at those words. He was behaving like he did back in college, when he had pulled all of those elaborated pick up lines that seemed copied from Shakespeare or whatever author they read in the Art Academy. And the worse part of the whole ordeal was that she always fell for his honeyed tongue.

And there was the fact of those three little words she had been expecting since he'd said them the first time when he pulled her into a tight embrace, after their graduation. She thought him too elated with his own accomplishment to take them seriously. He had never told her about his feelings for her, because he preferred to show her how much he cared for her by preparing breakfast, warming the flat by lighting the fireplace... and apparently, molding a statue of her as the female representation of the Rod of Asclepius.

Her eyes suddenly stung with emotion.

"I... I love you too, Deidara..." was all she managed to say before he brought his face to hers for another stolen kiss, pouring all his feelings into the masterful way of sweeping his tongue on her lips, his coveted way to ask for a response from her.

A sigh parted her lips as her hands went around his neck again, tangling her fingers in his long golden hair as she kissed him back desperately, showing him how much he had been missed, how much he had been yearned by her.

Heat was suddenly coursing through their veins. His hand went up to cup the back of her head, slipping his fingers between soft pink tresses as he deepened the kiss, his other hand rising to the knot that secured the towel. Her hands weren't idle either; as one of them played with his hair the other one went straight ahead for his sweatpants, rubbing him through the fabric and his hips came alive on their own volition, responding to her presence and her motions.

Pulling the towel and spreading it on the marble of his work table, pushing her downon her back to take a good look at his lover, Deidara let out a hiss.

"You haven't been eating well," he chastised her as his pants dropped to the floor and his hips grounded her center, reveling in her warmth and moistness. "I can see your ribs, yeah."

"You're going to be the death of me," she gasped feverishly, as his fingers and hands started the random trail that she never seemed to get enough of. His hands were so skilled, bringing her pleasure with merely a subtle touch. It was only comparable to his tongue, and she found herself wondering what would happen if his hands had mouths, snickering at her own perverted thought.

"Then I'll sculpt our mausoleum later, yeah," he shot back, one of his hands finding her center as his other served as support for his leaning body. He smirked into her breast when he heard her cry out, celebrating his lapping and nipping ministrations.

"Be careful, the statue--!" she managed to say before arching to receive him.

"I'll make you another one, yeah," he rasped before sliding into her body. She pressed her hips back, absorbing the force of his thrusts. His long golden hair strayed unto the table, mingling with hers as their mouths never left one another, kissing and eating each other.

Her peaking was asmagnificent as ever, he thought with his incensed eyes trained on her face as she shouted his name as she climaxed. This was the ultimate form of art, an expression of the fleetingness of life. She was the only one that matched his passion.

While he hissed her name while joining her beyond the edge, he came to terms with the steadiness and the everlastingness of what she wanted. She wanted certain stability, something she knew he wasn't able to give her.

Feeling her hands around his own body, Deidara knew that she wasn't expecting him to settle for a steadier relationship that the one they had, but as he responded to her subtle caresses and kissing her deeply, he found himself not minding a little unchanging thing in his life.

"The caduceus isn't really a symbol of medicine, you know," she murmured in an amused, panting tone.

"Meh," he said, leaning back and bringing her with him into a sitting position, his hands sliding and outlining her shape lovingly. "Too bad you didn't choose being a lawyer, because you would have made a beautiful Lady Justice, yeah."

Well, he wasn't above to prove her wrong and surprise her again, he concluded mentally as he saw the white-golden band with a green emerald hanging from the wrist of the little statue.

After all, Sakura always had said she loved surprises.

_- Tenna' ento lye omenta -  
_


End file.
